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Armed Forces Bill

My Amendments Nos. 123 to 125 concern the continuous service of members of the panel. We have covered that point already, and do not need to go back to it. My Amendments Nos. 118 and 119 are similar to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, on Amendments Nos. 117 and 130 about majority verdicts. The subject has been far better covered by the noble Lord than I could possibly do. I am worried about the issue of majority verdicts. We do not know how the panel in a court martial comes to its decision. Does it seek to be unanimous, or does it vote formally? We simply do not know. My Amendment No. 131 allows research into the operation of the panel, but with some restrictions. I am afraid that I do not support the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, on the ““recasting””, as he put it, of the panel. I believe that it should be composed of officers and warrant officers. If we want to go down that route, we ought just to go for the Crown Court in the UK and completely forget about courts martial. We do not want to go that way, though. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, said it would be intimidating for a serviceman to come before a court martial with the panel in front of him. I suspect that being cross-examined by the noble Lord is a bit intimidating as well. Another difficulty is that junior soldiers would not be trained and would not be experienced enough to decide these matters. The noble Lord touched on that as another difficulty. Sitting on a court martial is a bit much to ask of junior soldiers. Worse still, they may be a bit too quick to convict. It is important to remember that the panel is not supposed to be a jury; it is acting more as a judge. These are interesting matters to be raised.